What are your opinions on our textbook? What do you like about it? What do you dislike?

4 Answers

+2 votes

Overall I like it. I think that it does a good job of expressing why different concepts in software development are important by explaining how they are relevant in a large, ongoing example. I like how it also considers wrong ideas and explaining why they are wrong because those are some realistic thoughts that some students could have. One thing that I don't like is that sometimes some important definitions can get lost in the crazy organization in some pages. Overall I think that it gives the reader a good idea of the concepts and why they are relevant in an interesting way, which is good if you don't like reading from a cut-and-dry textbook.

I appreciate that the book tries not be be cut and dry. At the end of the day, however, I think that a normal book will do a much better job if you put in the effort. A normal book is going to be more clearly organized and will be able to cover topics with more depth and clarity than a bunch of made up scenarios.

It's not horrible, and it's one of the more interesting readings in my 4 classes that I have. This is probably because is so quick to get through. The main annoying part (besides some cheesiness) is the "problem-solving." In one chapter, you'd solved the problem! But, oh wait, the next chapter explains why the code is horrible and will get a good programmer nowhere in the world of efficient code. So they change it until they need to teach a better concept, and so on and so on.